She didn’t reply, but raised a hand in acknowledgement.
One of the bowmen on the other ship took a shot at them. But either he was too excited or he misjudged the roll of the ship. Or maybe he was just a bad shot. His arrow soared well ahead of them. The other man shot a few seconds later. His arrow rattled against the hull, forward of the mast.
‘He’s getting close,’ Stig said. His voice was tight and his eyes were fixed on the white water foaming away from the vicious ram in Raven’s bow. Hal said nothing. If he turned too soon, Zavac could slip away and they’d start all over again. He wanted the other skipper to try to follow his turn, before he became too accustomed to Heron’s superior manoeuvrability.
On the other hand, he thought, if he turned too late, the ram would smash into Heron’s timbers and it would be all over.
‘Ready Ulf and Wulf!’ he shouted. As he turned, they’d have to adjust the sails. Ulf waved a hand. Or maybe it was Wulf, he thought, grinning in spite of the seriousness of the situation.
Now!
He swung the ship away to port, heard the sheets squealing through the pulleys as the twins adjusted the sail, keeping it taut to the wind. Heron responded instantly, pivoting away from the larger ship. As he’d hoped, Zavac tried to match their turn, to keep the ram pointed at them.
‘Going about!’ he yelled, and swung the Heron back to starboard. One sail came down and the other soared up in its place. Then they were turning inside the Raven, cutting across her course so that the Heron’s bow, and the Mangler, were pointing at her.
‘Take over!’ he yelled to Stig and, as his friend took the tiller, he ran fleet-footed down the deck to the bow, dropping onto the seat behind the Mangler. Ingvar was ready on the training lever as Hal peered down the sights. The Raven was barely forty metres away. He aimed at the crowded group of men in her bow, now turning back to stare at the small ship swooping towards them. He’d hoped for a shot at Zavac, but the sharply up-curving stern concealed him, so that only his head was visible. That was too small a mark to hope to hit.
‘Left . . .’ he ordered Ingvar. ‘Steady now . . . steady . . .’
SLAM!
The Mangler bucked wildly as he released. The bolt streaked away and ploughed through the packed men in the bow of the ship. Ingvar was already reloading. Hal heard a thud as Thorn stepped forward to intercept an arrow with the huge shield.
Then he heard a vicious flick-hiss! as Lydia released a dart. One of the bowmen fell.
Now Hal had a new target. He figured that first bolt had killed or wounded at least four men. But now he was training the Mangler on the side of the Raven, where the rigging was attached.
There were three main shrouds – thick ropes, fastened to the bulwark – that supported the mast. He called directions to Ingvar, and lowered his aiming point until it was lined up where the centre rope was attached. Then, as the target filled his sights, he released.
SLAM!
Too high. The bolt skimmed over his aiming point, glanced off the upper part of the bulwark and soared high into the sky, causing no damage. Ingvar reloaded. They were very close now. Some of the pirates had run to the stern of the ship and were hurling spears at the Heron. So far, they had no effect.
Flick-hiss! Flick-hiss!
Two more darts from Lydia. Two more Magyarans down. And suddenly some of their companions lost their enthusiasm and retreated to the far side of the deck, seeking cover on the rowing benches.
Hal centred his sights on that heavy, tarred rope once more, at the point where it was attached to the hull.
‘Right . . . right a little . . . steady there . . .’ He wound the elevating wheel down so that his sights were set just below the block that secured the rope. He felt the ship begin to lift on a wave and pulled the trigger lanyard. There was a fraction of a second delay, then . . .
SLAM!
They were barely twenty metres apart and he saw the bolt smash into the timbers of the other ship at the exact point he’d aimed for. Splinters flew as a large section of the bulwark disintegrated under the impact. The centre shroud snapped loose, recoiling high into the air in an S shape as the tension on it was suddenly released, and flailing a large piece of shattered timber still attached to it.
The crew of the Heron cheered. But Hal was already screaming orders to Stig. They were almost on board the other ship.
‘Bear away! Bear away!’
He felt a surge of relief as the Heron began to swing clear and the gap between the ships widened. There were cries of alarm from the black ship, then Jesper was standing, pointing and shouting excitedly.
‘She’s gone! The mast has gone!’
With the full thrust of the wind still in its sail, the sudden loss of one-third of its support was too much for the Raven’s mast. It lurched to one side, and a second shroud parted with a loud, deep twanging sound. Then the barely supported, unbalanced mast snapped clean off, a metre above the deck, and crashed overboard to port, dragging rigging, yardarm and sail with it.
Raven heeled to port under the drag of the wreckage lying over her side. The Magyarans rushed to cut away the tangle of ropes and mast and sail. But for the moment, they were helpless. And, more importantly, heeled under the weight of the wreckage as she was, an expanse of her starboard side, normally below the waterline, was exposed.
Hal stood clear of the Mangler and yelled orders back to Stig, his voice cracking into a shriek in the excitement of the moment.
‘Circle!’ he yelled, describing a circle in the air with his hand. ‘Bring us back to bear on her!’
Stig nodded his understanding and heaved on the tiller, continuing the tight curve they had already begun. The Herons were cheering and pointing at the crippled black ship. Hal yelled at them now.
‘Shut up! Shut up and get back to your posts! We’ve got to finish her before she gets the wreckage cleared.’
Hurriedly, and a little shamefaced, they returned to their stations. Stig tacked the ship and brought her round the full circle so that she was heading for the Raven once more.
Hal climbed back into the seat behind the Mangler. Ingvar had already reloaded. They grinned at each other and Ingvar stroked one hand on the wood of the huge crossbow.
‘Good old Mangler,’ he muttered.
On board the Raven, Zavac had seen the little ship circling back to attack them again. He screamed orders at his men as they cut and hacked at the tangled cordage, chopped the shattered timber and heaved armloads of the massive canvas sail over the side. The Heron was still a hundred metres distant when he saw another bolt streak away from the terrible weapon she carried in her bow. He felt the shattering impact against Raven’s starboard side as it struck, punching a hole below her waterline. Then the ship lurched upright as the last of the wreckage was cleared and heaved overboard.
‘Oars!’ he screamed. ‘Run out the oars!’ And the crew scrambled to the rowing benches. Heron was fifty metres away and he could see her skipper in the bow, crouched over that massive crossbow.
Hal had seen the Raven come upright as her crew cleared the wreckage. He estimated he had time for one more shot before Zavac got her under way again. Already, the long oars were appearing, sliding out from the hull.
Heron was coming in on a steeper angle this time, and Zavac was exposed at the tiller.
‘Left! Left! Right a little! Steady!’ he yelled at Ingvar as he brought the sights to bear on the Magyaran captain. Zavac was staring back at him now, looking straight at the dreadful weapon that was training on him, singling him out. He looked around desperately but there was nowhere to hide.
Flick-hiss!
Obviously, Lydia had the same idea. But her dart missed Zavac by centimetres. His first mate, standing beside him, staggered and fell. Hal grinned mirthlessly. Lydia didn’t often miss, he thought. But this time it didn’t matter. This time, he had Zavac dead in his sights, barely thirty metres away. He pulled smoothly at the trigger lanyard.
Disaster struck.
 
; SLAM-CRACK!
The Mangler leapt back in recoil, and at that instant, one of the leather restraining straps parted, hurling the giant weapon to one side so that it lurched clear of its cradle and crashed to the deck. The bolt soared wildly into the air and Hal was thrown off his seat, under the heavy weapon as it toppled, falling sideways to the deck. As the Mangler fell, the left-hand limb of the bow took the initial impact as it struck the deck. The bow limb flexed and that momentary resistance saved Hal from being crushed and seriously injured.
But then the limb snapped and the full weight bore down on him, trapping him between the Mangler and the deck.
It’s said that catastrophe is the result of a random series of smaller mistakes or disasters coming one after the other.
As Hal lay trapped under the Mangler, Stig stooped to peer under the sail, trying to see what had happened. Ingvar was already heaving at the huge weapon to lift it clear and free Hal, shouting to his friend to make sure he wasn’t seriously injured. Thorn and Lydia had Hal by the arms, ready to drag him clear as soon as his lower body and legs were free.
Distracted by the struggle going on in the bow, Stig allowed his grip on the tiller to loosen. And he failed to see the disturbed surface of the sea that heralded a stronger than usual gust of wind coming across the water towards them.
The gust hit them and drove the Heron sideways, closer to the damaged Magyaran ship. As it did, one of the pirate’s crew saw a sudden advantage.
‘Hook her! Hook her!’ he yelled to his companions as they swarmed back into the rowing benches.
The Raven’s oars were fitted with an unusual device – one of Zavac’s making. At the end of the shaft, before the wood flattened into the shaped oar blade, each oar was fitted with an iron hook, for use in situations like this one. Four of the rowers instantly ran their oars out towards Heron, setting the hooks into her bulwarks and dragging her closer. Then the rowers set their weight on the oars to hold them steady, forming a precarious but usable walkway between the two ships. Within an instant, four of their crewmates leapt onto the makeshift boarding bridge. It was an action they had practised many times. They moved sideways, each man balancing on two of the oars and shuffling quickly across the gap.
The twins were first to realise what was happening. They let go the sheets and grabbed for their weapons, rising to meet the first of the boarders as he stepped onto Heron’s port bulwark. The first man, however, was caught by the suddenly released sail flapping loose. It hit him in the face and he tumbled off the narrow walkway and fell, screaming, into the seething water trapped between the two hulls.
But there were three more close behind him and they ducked the heavy, flying canvas, then came on. They drove Ulf and Wulf back and leapt aboard. Others were poised on the Raven to follow them.
Stig yelled at Edvin to take the helm, although there was no steering to be done at the moment. He grabbed his axe and shield and, with an ear-shattering roar of rage, launched himself at the nearest of the three men pressing Ulf and Wulf back against the mast. Even as he cut him down, more of the Raven’s crew were making their way across the oar-bridge.
But now Hal was free of the Mangler. He scrambled to his feet, drawing his sword. Then he and Thorn launched themselves at the boarders from the other side.
Hal twisted aside from a spear thrust. The man who had aimed it at him was momentarily off balance, teetering awkwardly on the oars, which flexed beneath his weight. Hal thrust quickly, hitting him in the thigh. The Magyaran dropped his spear, reached to clutch the wound in his leg and toppled off the oars into the sea.
Now Thorn and Stig, in a concerted pincer movement, crashed into the other Magyarans who had made it aboard. Thorn’s sword swung in a deadly arc, then darted out like a serpent and another pirate was down. A third tried in vain to block Stig’s overhead axe cut with a small metal hand-shield.
But Lydia saw three more men edging carefully across the oars towards the Heron. She grabbed an oar and shoved it into Ingvar’s hands.
‘Come with me!’ she yelled, seizing his arm and dragging him to the side of the ship.
The would-be boarders hesitated. Thorn and Stig had left the last of the boarders to the twins and now moved to stand ready at the end of the improvised boarding bridge. Hal stepped back to give them room. The Magyarans stopped, sizing up the situation, just out of reach of the Skandians’ deadly weapons.
But not out of reach of Ingvar’s oar. Lydia pointed to the three men and shouted to Ingvar.
‘There, Ingvar! There they are!’
The huge boy squinted at them for a second. They were blurred shapes, and he couldn’t see any detail. But Lydia had told him they were the enemy and that was good enough for him. With a mighty roar, he swung the oar at full length, smashing it into them, sweeping them from their unsteady foothold. One fell back aboard the Raven, three of his ribs fractured by the oar. The others went into the sea. One momentarily surfaced, gasping and clawing at the water’s surface. Then, burdened by the weight of his chain mail and shield, he disappeared.
Ingvar turned to Lydia. ‘Any more?’ he asked.
She smiled and shook her head. ‘I think you’ve frightened the others off.’
Even as she spoke, Stig was busy with his axe. Four blows in rapid succession sheared through the oars holding the two ships together. As she saw him do this, Lydia took the oar, placed it against the Raven’s hull, then put the butt end into Ingvar’s hands.
‘Push us clear!’ she shouted and she helped as Ingvar leaned his massive strength against the oar, shoving the two hulls apart, so that Heron’s bow swung away from the black ship.
‘Get on the sail!’ Hal yelled, as the gap between the ships widened. Ulf and Wulf tossed their weapons to the deck and scrambled back to the trimming sheets. They heaved in on the ropes and the flapping sail hardened to the wind, driving the ship away from Raven. Edvin watched anxiously, easing the tiller so that Heron’s stern didn’t swing too far and come into contact with the black ship. A Magyaran crewman was poised on the Raven’s stern rail, his arm drawing back to cast a spear at Edvin. Before he could bring it forward, one of Lydia’s darts thudded into his side and he fell with a small groan, back onto the deck.
Then they were clear and accelerating away. Hal sheathed his sword and looked astern. Raven’s oars were running out on either side, although there were four fewer of them than there had been. Zavac had transferred two from the port side to even them out. As he watched, they began their steady beat, like a bird’s wings, and the black ship surged after them.
Ingvar and Lydia went to work clearing the wrecked Mangler, tying it down so that it wouldn’t lurch around the deck and cause damage. Ingvar peered disconsolately at the ruined weapon.
‘How bad is it?’ he asked.
Lydia patted his arm. ‘Hal can fix it,’ she said.
Ingvar shook his head. ‘But not today.’
And that was the problem Hal, Thorn and Stig were discussing in the stern, where Hal had taken the tiller once more. Edvin, relieved of the responsibility of steering, was tending to Wulf, who had sustained a cut on his calf.
‘The Mangler’s wrecked,’ Hal said. ‘We can’t stand off and do any more damage from long range. We’re going to have to fight them close in.’
Stig smiled grimly. ‘We’ve done plenty of damage to them already,’ he said. ‘One way or another, we’ve probably got rid of half Zavac’s crew.’
‘We’re still outnumbered,’ Thorn said. ‘Without the Mangler to keep their heads down, how will we get close to them?’
Hal looked steadily at him, then looked astern to where Raven was accelerating after them, cutting across the arc they were describing, just as they had done before. Under oars, the black ship was much more manoeuvrable and, in the short term, nearly as fast as Heron. He could make out Zavac’s tall shape at the tiller.
‘We’ll make him think it’s his idea,’ he said. He checked Raven’s position again. She had turned inside them and was hea
ding to intercept them and ram. At the moment, she was gaining slowly. But as her rowers tired, that might not continue.
‘Ulf! Wulf!’ Hal called. ‘Gradually ease the sheets, a little at a time. I want to slow down. But I don’t want Zavac to realise we’ve done it on purpose.’
The twins both waved that they understood. Gradually, they began to ease the sheets, letting the wind spill from the sail. Hal felt the ship slowing.
‘That’s enough!’ he called. ‘Keep it there!’
He looked at Raven again. She was closer now. Zavac had learned his earlier lesson and was pointing his ship ahead of the Heron’s course, at a spot where he would intercept her.
Hal had a plan in mind to further disable the pirate craft. As the Raven came closer, it would call for split-second timing and co-ordination between Hal, Stefan, Jesper and the twins. But they had trained and practised as a crew for months. Hal was confident they’d pull it off.
There were several factors in their favour. Zavac had spent most of his career attacking slow trading ships. Aside from their one encounter outside Limmat, he hadn’t seen how fast and agile Heron could be. Their battle so far today had depended more on the devastating power of the Mangler, rather than Heron’s superior handling qualities.
Their other advantage lay in the fact that Zavac, like most skippers of square-rigged ships, preferred to change direction by wearing, keeping the wind astern, rather than tacking, or turning head into the wind. Wearing ship was a slower process. Tacking was faster, but much riskier. Chances were he would not expect them to take such a course.
And that could lead to his undoing.
The Raven was slowly gaining on them. Hal watched her through narrowed eyes, counting the oar beats as they thrashed at the sea’s surface.
‘No foxing this time,’ he said. ‘He’s coming at us as fast as he can.’
It was a common tactic for ships that were intending to ram to approach at less than full speed, putting on a sudden spurt in the last thirty or forty metres. But Zavac wasn’t trying any such subterfuge. He was bearing down as fast as he could, his men straining at the oars to keep the Raven skimming towards them. Hal looked closely now. Two of the oars Stig had smashed seemed to have been replaced. Zavac must have been carrying spares.